Gartner: Linux 'five years away from mainstream use'

ZDNet Asis reports Gartner is saying open source is still 'five years away from mainstream use' in the enterprise and far behind in the desktop market:

Open source is still up to five years away from mainstream use in enterprise IT infrastructures, despite the progress made in the commercialisation of the platform, according to analyst Gartner.

Gartner's latest Linux 'hype cycle' report shows that open source is halfway to maturity but warns the biggest test will be whether it can demonstrate the necessary performance and security to function as a data centre server for mission-critical applications.

Leading-edge businesses are generally still in the early stages of Linux deployments but Gartner expects increased commercialisation and improved storage and systems management for the operating system by the end of 2005, with Linux being used primarily for WebSphere and infrastructure applications on mainframes and web services on blades and racks.

With IBM pushing Linux on the mainframe the enterprise is installing Linux pretty fast. The real test is the the rate of new mainframe sales and the ability of mass storage vendors such of EMC to support Linux. I was told by an EMC engineer earlier this year that EMC is up for the task.